TeamK-9

Honestly, what you're experiencing is normal. A major conception is that GPS will lead you right to the spot. It doesn't. And quite frankly, I think averaging is a bit of a crock too. I mean, there are just so many ways that it could go wrong and throw off your coordinates. Generally, I set my GPS down in a spot where it can get the best sat coverage possible, then I let it sit for a few minutes, I generally spend those few minutes finishing up the hiding. It's a good plan...

You know, it's really sad. I just looked at the list. I wasn't expecting to see myself very high up. But, oh my. I'm 12th... Gosh... That's scary... I couldn't get any normal looking numbers using your formula, but I assume I'm in the 99th percentile...

I was thinking of just laminating the card and sticking it to the magnet. Is there any change in "performance" of the magnet after it's been laminated?

I think as long as you list the caches as open to anyone. Or go the opposite direction and just set up your own caches specifically for your adventure tours. You'd be fine. I think it would be a cool idea, and I think that if you do any business with hikers, you might be able to find people who would be interested in geocaching... Maybe just throw it in as an option for your hikes or whatever you do? Not necessarily have trips that are solely geocaching.

I believe that this discussion IS on topic. We are talking about what people use to mark waypoints, which seems to me to be pretty closely related to the placement of waypoint tags. If the OP or the moderators consider this to be off topic, please let me know, and I'll discontinue my participation in this particular discussion. Honestly, I have to side with letherman. The discussion of wether or not to use sharpies to write on signs is off topic. The OP wanted to know what other people used for their intermediate stages of multis, I'm pretty sure they didn't want a huge discussion over why some ideas aren't good... Personally. Most of the multis in my area use one type of container for all of the intermediate stages, and that's getting a little boring. I like caches that combine all of the different ideas. Right now, my newest cache is going to have business card magnets, pvc pipe, and even some normal film canisters. One multi that I did just yesterday was really fun. It was a cow magnet with coords written on it and stuck to a guard rail. I spent at least three hours looking for that thing, and I had to have had my hand on it multiple times, but I didn't find it till the owner drove, pulled it out and handed it to me. Don't know what a cow magnet is? Google it. They're really pretty cool...

To state the obvious: There seems to be quite a few...

Question to you guys: How would you feel about just pulling up to a house in a small suburban neighborhood, sitting there, tuning your radio to a specific AM station, sitting for a short time to get coordinates, and then driving off? It's an idea I'm toying with. I'm definately going to use the radio transmitter, it's just a matter of placement...

What is Hand on chin?? what is this?? It's a hand gesture, used primarily by geocachers who read the forums. It was more popular last year, but I've still heard references to it. It's basically using your thumb and pointer finger to make a sort of check mark under your chin...

I'd say go ahead with the cache. It sounds like a great idea. But go to the office of whatever the local land management agency is (you said USFS right) and confirm that there is no laws or policies against taking anything from the site. Even if there isn't a policy or law, I'd probably put something to this extent on the cache page: "This cache is placed here in memory of a nearby plane crash. While travelling to the cache, you may stumble on the crash. Very little of the wreckage was ever recovered, and there is still debris scattered all throughout the area. Please respect those who lost their lives and leave the debris here, in memory of their death."

On occasion, it is fun to do a cache where you know you're being watched. Like caches in community parks that only people from that particular community would know about, so you think they might be watching. The question I guess is what kind of land this house is on? If there's a bit of distance between the house and the cache place, I'd feel a bit better about it. You also have to realize how a good cache is one that takes you to somewhere cool. Try to think what would be cool about hanging out in someones front yard, looking like a goof? Not that this is a bad idea. I think it just needs some certain specific characterisitcs of the location for it to work, so could you just describe the general location?

But hey, it's your money, and if you want to spend it waterproofing a waterproof device, spend away. I could be reading that entirely wrong, but the way I read it, that thing basically contradicts itself. The unit itself is waterproof, but the battery compartment isn't? Surely, if water can get into the battery compartment then it could find a way to make it up into the rest of the GPS from there....

Generally, if I'm wading across a stream, I put my GPS into a waterproof bag, and throw it in the pack. I've been known to fall into streams, even when the clumsiest people make it across. That being said, aren't most GPS' water resistant in stead of waterproof? Waterproof would mean that you could leave it at the bottom of your pool for days without anything happening. Water resistance means that it can be splashed, rained, or dripped on with no problems. In a lot of cases, it can even be submerged at a certain level for a short ammount of times. But honestly, I wouldn't trust it that much. If I'm in a wet area, I keep my gps in a bag. As Stunod's GPS or my cellphone can tell you from up there in electronics heaven, GPS and cell phones are not entirely waterproof.

I once had an idea where I would have the first stage of a cache at one specific place, and then they'd be given bearing and distance to the next stage. I really liked this idea, and I actually looked into it quite a bit. My idea was to have the two stages on opposite sides of the lake, so that people would have to use orienteering skills, to take multiple bearings to get around the lake and to the place I wanted them to go. Then I realized how much of a pain in the butt this would be for people trying to do it, so I scrapped the idea. Later, I looked into the idea again, and even got as far as scouting out locations, but then I found the "project waypoint" feature on the GPS and the idea was scrapped again...

I myself have taken a course on orienteering and go to at least one small competition each summer. I know of several other geocachers in my area who are involved too... It really is fun...

While I don't claim to be an authority on the subject, I think you're heading in the direction looking at the Ique. If you plan to use it for geocaching though, be sure to get a good, protective case... And lots of those plastic screen protectors...

Up until a while ago, I was using an older Palm PDA for paperless caching. Unfortunately, that PDA died, so we've been looking for a replacement for sometime. Against my, and my brother's better judgement, we got an HP Ipaq with PocketPC. I've been looking at my options for paperless, but honestly I'm really confused. Having a palm, I used the GPX Spinner/plucker combo, and was very happy with the results I got with it. Switching to PDA, I decided to try GPXSonar. I don't know if I'm not using it correctly, but it just sort of seems overly complicated to me. Is there anything similar to the spinner/plucker combo that's availabe for PPC, or is there possibly even a way to get spinner/plucker to work with PPC?

I might slip some of these geocred brochures onto the table, next to the geocaching brochures at a GPS seminar I'm helping with in a couple weeks...

On the arkgeocaching.org board we have a thread called "Dust-Offs" where we list the caches that haven't been found in the longest time. The only way that I know of finding these is by getting all of the caches in the state into GSAK, and then sorting by Last Found Date. This seems like a perfectly legitimate use to me. --RuffRidr We have a similar thing in our Pittsburgh, PA based group. Our group covers a large area, not even inside the state necessarily but our "dustoffs" (called the Lonely Cache Challenge) are generated by a pocket query set to find caches within 50 miles of a point that could be considered the center of Pittsburgh, technically. Doing this for a whole state could be a lot harder. Now that I think of it, you have a very legitimate point...

From what I understand, the reasoning behind limiting the number and size of pocket queries is this: GC.com uses a very proprietary databasing system. I think the fear is that if they were to allow people to get a whole state, then someone could take that data and make their own geocaching website based on GC.com's data. Honestly though, what would you want with the info on that many caches...

Awww, that's not too bad. Not enough to warrant hundreds of letters to the editor, but maybe a few...

I was just at the store yesterday, and I didn't see a new issue, (I'm not a subscriber yet) I'll keep on the look out for it. Would you care to quote what it says?

Could someone send me links to the actual files. And does anyone have a better scan of the mirror tag? I really like that one, and I think it could be very useful. If I had to, I think I could recreate it, but I'd really like to just print out a copy or something...

Going along with everyone else, I have to say it's just a childish prank. Going by the placement, and the actual item, you'd have to realize how creeped out you'd be at night, if you were walking through and you found that. My guess is that a guy wanted to scare his girlfriend by walking her through the cemetary, and he decided to leave a couple props to make the walk a bit scarier...

A while back, I did a cache that involved an interesting puzzle. The puzzle in itself was entirely easy, once you knew what to do with it. The cache offered no hints as to what to do with it. And this was not a cache where I could sit at home for hours puzzling over, the only copy of the puzzle was in an ammo can 45 minutes away. After spending probably an hour and a half staring at the puzzle, I just couldn't think of it. And so I went home and logged a DNF. Later, I emailed the owner and asked if he'd be willing to divulge a small hint. He later emailed me back. "Don't worry K9, take another look at the puzzle, it's as easy as 1,2,3" Once I read that, it immediately hit me what I needed to do. I thought the hint was very helpful, and I liked it. If it had been right on the cache page, I wouldn't have liked it. In fact, I wouldn't hvave liked it at all if I hadn't gotten the hint in exactly that way. It would have just been way too easy...

Living in a rural area, I was surprsied when I saw that it was 16 miles. I would have thought it would be a lot farther. But then I realized that that 16 miles puts me inside the major metropolitan area that is Pittsburgh, PA.